


Show Me a Man Without a Dream and I'll Show You a Man That's Dead

by ajremix



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:18:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1699625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajremix/pseuds/ajremix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easier to rebuild your life when you have someone to help you do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me a Man Without a Dream and I'll Show You a Man That's Dead

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't much care for Bellamy but I do love the Skypieans so something like this is the only way I'll accept how his trip to Skypia went. Though, to be completely honest, I really didn't have a coherent idea when I started this so apologies for any disjointedness. Also may not be 100% canon compliant because I haven't been keeping up as well as someone writing such a thing should be. Title comes from Eee-O Eleven by Sammy Davis Jr.

He didn't remember much after the pain and darkness. Just that he and his crew were tossed onto his ship and set off to drift with an ominous farewell of a cheshire grin. He remembered a jolt that made the deck around him splinter and creak, that knocked his breath away, then barely being able to breathe at all.

And white. Everything was white.

How he got from that to looking up at a ceiling- a tent, if he really thought about it -he had no idea.

"Are you going to stay awake this time?"

It felt like the most difficult thing in the world for Bellamy to roll his head to one side but when he did he found an angel. The most un-angelic angel he'd ever imagined, head shaved save for a long strip of hair kept tied back, tattoos arcing across one side of a stern face that was smoking out the corner of his mouth. One arm was set in a brace, the rest of his dark, scar-marked body peppered with stitches and bandages. While Bellamy was caught flabbergasted at the man, the angel turned to someone beyond Bellamy's sight and barked out, "Get the old man over here."

The old man politely introduced himself as Gan Fall and the angel as Wiper. Bellamy, barely able to get his thoughts in order, croaked out, "Where am I? Where's my crew?"

Gan Fall sighed, tugging at his long beard. "I am afraid we were too late to save many of them. We don't know how long you were drifting on the White Sea before someone found you."

"White Sea...?"

"The sea between here and your Blue Sea."

Something was lodged deep in Bellamy's chest, making it even harder to breathe. "What are you talking about?" A panic welled in him, making his wounds ache. "Where am I?"

"You are on the sky island. This is Skypiea."

They probably hadn't expected him to tear out of the tent. Bellamy wouldn't have either and he'd probably regret it later if his mind hadn't been awashed with ' _nonononononononono_ '. He stumbled to his knees where they didn't scrape against the ground but bounced slightly on something fluffy and white. Earth was around him with great towering trees and ruins half covered in greenery, but there were also patches of cloud everywhere and angels who paused in their lives only long enough to look at him oddly. Angels in all shapes and sizes, wearing furs and robes and feathers and pants, looking so damn ordinary Bellamy wanted to scream.

"Oi, Genbou- help me get this idiot back in bed."

And if Wiper had seemed un-angelic, Bellamy didn't even know what to call this new one- rotund and scowling, with hands that could've crushed him if Bellamy's body was still capable of being crushed. "This can't be right," he babbled to no one. "This isn't possible. Sky island isn't supposed to exist!"

"It does and so do we," Genbou grunted as he plopped the hysterical pirate back into bed. "Are all Blue Sea dwellers so weird?" He didn't bother to wait for an answer, just went right back out.

"This can't be. It can't, it can't, it can't." Bellamy dug the heels of his hands against his eyes, panic turning into tears. "That damned Straw Hat can't be right! _He can't be_! If he's right... does that mean that crazy old man was right? Him and those damn monkeys- is their gold city real? People with foolish, impossible dreams are supposed to be weak! They're prey! _They can't be right_! If they're right... if they're right..." Tears slid down the back of his throat, tasting like blood and bitter failure and his life crushed itself out in his chest. "It means I'm wrong. Everything I thought, everything I believed in- it was all wrong." He pulled his hands away, staring up at Gan Fall without really seeing him, was just shattered glass lying jagged and raw. "What am I supposed to do now?"

For a long moment Gan Fall just stared at him, eyes unreadable from under a heavy brow. At last he said, "Stay if you wish. So long as you do not harm anyone, you may stay as long as you need to."

~*~*~*~

Wiper did not appreciate being told to work closely with Gan Fall to reconstruct Skypiea. He understood, of course- Wiper was a leader of war, he understood sacrifice and death and how to endure the threat of extinction, not how to endure peace -but a lifetime of hate and fighting couldn't be easily washed away. He still had knee-jerk reactions simply seeing a fellow Shandian being friends with a Skypiean. He had fought and bled to take back his ancestral home for his people, had lost good friends and nearly lost many more and he wanted to throw every single outsider off the edge of vearth.

He knew they had no home, that the Skypieans were just as displaced as his people had been for 400 years and they were working just as hard to build a new home in the ruins of Upper Yard as the Shandians were. But it was still hard, learning bit by bit to let go of the anger that had kept him alive when he should've died. Like a fist clenched just below his heart, trying to remember how to uncurl a finger at a time.

Then this pirate showed up and the Chief may have embraced the idea of never having to fight again but Wiper did not. He was an outsider and the way he talked about Straw Hat and someone Wiper suspected was the descendent of Norland, he could be violent. Gan Fall, at least, was willing to be wary of the man's intentions though he seemed more wary of Wiper- as if worried that the warrior had become so ingrained to fight that he was willing to take any excuse for it.

"I don't like him."

"You don't like anyone."

Wiper glared at Kamakiri, grinding his teeth on the end of his cigarette. With a huff and a grin, Kamakiri amended, "Who do you particularly dislike this time?"

"That pirate. We don't know anything about him."

"Aisa feels sorry for him. Said his voice makes her chest hurt, like he's falling apart inside."

That just made Wiper grind his teeth harder. Broken men could be dangerous men.

"So? What're you going to do about him? Drop him through the White-White Sea?"

"The old man told him he could stay as long as he didn't make trouble."

"And the rest of his crew?"

Wiper sneered, leaning back against a wall they'd finished putting up earlier. "Mewling cowards wanting to go home."

"Well, they can't all be impressive." Kamakiri pushed himself to his feet- carefully, the scar across his back still tender and raw in places. Wiper made a mental note to have Braham keep him from working the rest of the day. "Let's get some lunch. I hear someone's caught a skyshark- they're going to try that recipe Straw Hat's cook left us."

Perhaps he was justified. Perhaps a life of war just left him paranoid. But they had all sacrificed so much to finally gain peace and Wiper wasn't going to let anyone take it away from them.

~*~*~*~

There were three. Of those that stayed, of those that got sent to drift with him, only three survived and, unsurprisingly, they wanted nothing to do with Bellamy. "Because _you_ wanted to humiliate that Straw Hat kid! Because _you_ wanted to steal the old man's gold! Because _you_ brought down Doflamingo on us!"

They were through. With him, with pirating, with the damned Grand Line. What could Bellamy do? What did he even have left? What was a captain who didn't have a crew behind him?

So he sat- friendless, hopeless, futureless -as the sun set behind Skypiea's canopy of treetops and somewhere a bell tolled, heavy and deep, seeping into the coils in Bellamy's bones.

"If you feel up for it, you should join us for dinner."

He looked up to see two women before him, one fair haired, the other dark. The former smiled patiently as the latter watched Bellamy with sharp, unimpressed eyes.

"No." He said listlessly.

"Would you like me to bring you something? There's pumpkin stew if your stomach is unsettled."

"No." Bellamy didn't want to eat anything ever again, just wanted to sit there and waste away until the wind blew every last worthless piece of him into nothing.

The dark haired woman tsked. "If you want to die, do it somewhere else. Conis and our doctors worked hard to keep you alive and no one here will let you waste all their work." Three men stood a little ways off, too far to be involved but close enough to be if they were needed. Bellamy wondered if they'd try to force food down his throat if they had to.

"Come on," the blonde- Conis -said with a warm smile and welcoming hand. "The wolves brought wine. You'll want to try it before it's all gone."

Bellamy's brow furrowed. "The wolves brought wine?"

"Yes. It's apparently a secret recipe- they won't share it no matter who asks."

His brow furrowed more. "The wolves _make_ wine?" 

"It's very good. My father is trying to convince them to start selling it."

That alone was enough to make Bellamy take Conis's hand. Just what the hell kind of place was sky island?

~*~*~*~

The pirate was getting stronger by the day, at least physically. He still mostly kept to himself, sitting and staring at nothing until someone changed his bandages or took him to eat. It was really rather pathetic so Wiper went up to him and said, "You know Straw Hat?"

The pirate looked up and Wiper could see how the wound on his face was slowly turning into another scar. In that regard, at least, he was like any Shandian warrior. "I've met him."

"Most people here consider him a hero."

"Do you?"

Wiper crossed his arms, the corners of his eyes tightening momentarily as his arm twinged. He hoped that the pain would eventually disappear, but he steeled himself for it to not. "He did what I didn't have the power to do."

"That doesn't mean you think he's a hero."

Because he didn't. Because underneath the relief was something twisted and selfish. Something Wiper couldn't put to words and wouldn't be able to admit to anyone even if he could. Because Straw Hat did what he couldn't and Wiper didn't fight like he did to become a hero but he had never wanted to be an inconsequential piece in someone else's victory.

"He did right by my people," Wiper said eventually. "I am grateful for that."

Straw Hat may have accomplished Wiper's dream for him, but it was an end that gave him no closure, no sense of accomplishment. Now he was floundering in peace, in pain, with nothing to propel him forward. Perhaps in that, too, they were the same.

~*~*~*~

Weeks merged together and eventually one of the islanders- Braham -dragged Bellamy along to work. "You're healthy enough," he'd said, "and it's better than sitting alone inside your head every day."

It seemed just about everyone was working- constructing buildings, clearing rubble, gathering supplies. He was tasked to help raise a roof on top of a house and when he displayed his Devil Fruit power- for the first time since... well, since Straw Hat -everyone got excited about it, asking him questions and wanting demonstrations.

They asked if his ability was the same as Straw Hat's.

Eventually someone had explained what happened not more than two weeks before Bellamy's arrival. Or at least what the popular story was, how Straw Hat had struck down God and brought an end to centuries of bloodshed between two peoples. It was a simplistic story and Bellamy was sure there were nuances that either didn't get passed around or most completely missed. It was the kind of story that seemed to suit Straw Hat well. Naive and unrealistic but it was the truth, wasn't it? Even with details omitted, Bellamy could see the reality of it all around him.

Everyone clustered around him because they wanted to talk about their hero. About the silly little dreamer with fluff in his head and steel in his core and it made that gaping emptiness in Bellamy grow. He understood now why Straw Hat hadn't fought back that first time. It was because Bellamy was too beneath him to even be worth clenching a fist.

The man Bellamy had laughed at was the one who had everything Bellamy wanted.

"Hey, why don't you come out with us." He turned to find a small group carrying various weapons, Wiper among them. Kamakiri- wearing the kind of glasses Doflamingo would've scoffed at -continued, hefting a board, "Probably better use of your skills hunting than building." From the way the man looked at the crowd of tittering workers, he likely meant more for Bellamy's state of mind. "That ability should let you keep up with us in the forest so you won't have to learn to use Dial skates."

"Considering how low our stores are getting," Genbou added, "we could use the extra hand."

Bellamy was tempted to ask how much they were planning on bringing back with a group as heavily armed as they were but he'd seen how large the Southbirds got up here. He'd heard all the warnings of traps and beasts left over from the fight against God's forces. But perhaps... he could feel his legs quiver.

"It might do me some good," he admitted, "being active again."

"Just don't push yourself too hard," Kamakiri warned lightly.

"You should take your own advice," Laki shot back as she pushed passed the man. But her hand lingered on his back where Bellamy knew a scar lay angry red.

Genbou laughed, leading the group toward the edge of the forest. "He won't be able to show off with Wiper here to watch him. If _he_ remembers not to push himself."

With a rough sigh, Braham followed after them. "I'm coming too- I have a feeling the three of them are going to be more trouble than they're worth."

They carried on snipping and laughing at each other even as they shot Milky Dials through the trees. It was, Bellamy thought, almost... comforting.

~*~*~*~

"The man I admired most in the world used my best friend to nearly kill me."

The confession was blurted out so randomly and with no preamble that it caught Wiper by surprise though the act of confessing itself did not. It was something that was building for the last few days, gaining steam the more time Bellamy spent among Wiper's group, obvious in the way his lips would cinch tight or how he'd look to where what remained of his own crew were integrating among the islanders.

"And? What happened to your friend?" Wiper asked, though he'd bet he already knew the answer.

"He... was one of those that didn't make it."

"So you set out to sea with the wounds from your fight?"

"It wasn't a fight." Bellamy wrapped his arms around himself. The last of his bandages had come off days ago but he still held himself like he was broken. "I couldn't raise my hand to Sarquis. We'd been friends for so long- he's the one that suggested we be pirates, he helped me join Doflamingo's crew. I could never have fought him."

So even the Blue Sea had men as malicious and cruel as Eneru. Logically it was no surprise, but it was another thing entirely to see the victim of such a person.

Wiper didn't know what to do with this confession. He didn't know what to do with people at all really, not outside of battle or preparing for the next one. Nor did he understand why Gan Fall, why his own friends were so insistent that he be the one to help Bellamy.

"Because you're similar in a lot of ways," they had said, "it might help."

Wiper didn't know how to help people. Not like this. This wasn't the kind of fighting he was trained to do.

"I envy you," the words were soft but shattered Wiper's thoughts regardless. Bellamy had curled in on himself, becoming as small as his voice. "You have good friends, people that need you, a future to work for. I lost everything because I believed in the way I lived and everything I believed in turned out to be wrong."

Then Wiper, with his throat dry and weeks of hopeless frustration suddenly coming to a boil in his chest, said, "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to live without fighting, how to lead without fighting. I'm only doing what I'm told to because I don't know how to do it myself. My way of life has become obsolete and I don't know how to change."

They stayed quiet after that, just watching the sun go down and listening to the Fire of Shandora singing into the twilight. The confession didn't ease the resentful knot in Wiper's chest any but for the first time since that brief moment after Wiper woke up to find Eneru gone and Shandora theirs, he felt the burden of his ancestors slip from his shoulders.

~*~*~*~

It became surprisingly easy to talk to each other afterward. Not so much conversing as it was one allowing the other to dump their weaknesses at their feet.

"I don't know how to pick a dream to chase," Bellamy said.

"I don't know who I am when I'm not fighting," Wiper said.

When the day's work was done and everyone else went off to enjoy themselves before gathering in the village for the banquet dinner, they'd watch the sunset and listen to the bell toll and say what they never could to anyone else.

"He killed most of my crew but I still want Doflamingo's approval and I hate myself for it."

"The Skypieans act like their ancestors never drove us from our homes and I hate them for it."

They wouldn't have ever called themselves close. Probably wouldn't have called each other friends. But maybe it was that distance that allowed them to admit the things they did.

Bellamy said, "I want my crew back."

Wiper said, "I want a friendship like Calgara and Norland had."

And that had been good enough.

~*~*~*~

"How the hell does a snake get that big, anyway?"

"The Master of the Sky? Her kind have always grown large," Wiper said as the two watched her dance to the sound of the bell. "My people used to worship them as gods."

"Until Norland, right?" Bellamy heard about the story and the friendship that transcended time and distance. It was exactly the kind of thing a guy like Straw Hat would get sucked in by. And, Bellamy had to admit, it put a longing within him as well. "You know, the more I think about it, the more you and Calgara seem alike."

"I am his direct descendent," Wiper said with the kind of neutrality that said he wasn't sure where Bellamy was going with this or if he was going to like it.

"I know that," he waved a hand distractedly, "I mean everything else. Your gods, your trees, your altar- Norland just showed up one day and bulldozed over all of that. He had his reasons and I'm not saying he was wrong," Bellamy added quickly as Wiper's face darkened viciously, "I'm just saying did you ever wonder how Calgara felt about it? How someone forced him to see everything he believed was a superstition? Did he ever look back at the people he sacrificed to his gods and hate himself for what he did?"

The Shandian inhaled sharply and, for a brief moment, Bellamy wondered if Wiper was going to kill him.

"His friend changed his life all at once- did he have trouble adjusting? Did he ever resent Norland for doing that? Did he ever feel helpless when he didn't have his old ways to fall back on?" Bellamy studied Wiper's profile, the straight length of his nose, the twitched in his jaw where his teeth clenched. "Makes him a lot like you, doesn't it?"

Wiper turned with an intensity in his eyes that would never allow anyone to doubt why he was the strongest warrior in the sky. "A lot like us both."

~*~*~*~

The ruins of Shandora were becoming more like a village every day. There were more houses than tents, roads were paved, a commercial area had sprung up; Gan Fall was coordinating farming efforts while Conis and Laki planned expeditions into the forest to gather more varieties of seeds and there were people drawing up plans for a cloud refinery. Wiper didn't know what it was, but one day he'd looked over his people and realized they were no long clawing for survival, they were _thriving_ and that made him thrill in ways fighting never did.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you looked happy."

Wiper merely spared a sidelong look at Bellamy before turning back to the village. Then he asked, "What do you plan to do?"

He could hear the pirate frowning. "I'm not planning anything."

"So this is good enough for you? You're content to stay in Skypiea for the rest of your life?" The remains of Bellamy's crew may have settled- hell, one had married a Skypiean -but it didn't seem like a proper fit for the former captain.

"Does it matter to you?"

"It's better not to lose a useful set of hands, but there's no point in keeping you if this is not where you want to be."

"Why are you bringing this up all of the sudden?"

He thought about Calgara, about the Chief, then and now, about those that set aside their pride for the best of the village and those in it. Wiper had grown up wanting to be a man like that, to be someone who would gladly bend for the sake of the future of his people. And yet, somehow, he had ended up staring into the past instead. So wrapped up in correcting his ancestor's regret, in the final victory that would wipe over the defeat of the past, that he'd forgotten that surviving was about a thousand little victories. That having hope in an unforeseeable future meant having something to celebrate in the present, no matter how inconsequential.

"I want to protect my people. I always have. But without a threat to defend against, there's little I can do for them." Sunlight flashed through the leaves, blinding Wiper for a moment, making his breath catch as the wind ruffled through his wings. "So I've decided that I want to do whatever it takes to keep my people happy." He turned to Bellamy, something almost soft in his eyes. "I need to know if that includes you."

~*~*~*~

Staying in Skypiea- living there, _dying_ there -it had such a finality to it that, well, Bellamy was afraid. He only made that commitment twice before: once to the sea when he decided to become a pirate and once to Doflamingo the moment he decided to work under the man. It had been frightening those times before but there had also been a shiver in his blood that told him he was doing the right thing. He was doing what he wanted to do.

The thought of pledging himself to Wiper and the sky just made him feel a little sick.

Which, in a way, was a bit of a relief. At least he had some idea of what he _didn't_ want to do. There was no room in that peaceful community for him. His place... his place was below, on the Blue Sea, going where the wind and tide took him and...

And...

That was where he got caught up. Ever since he woke up in the sky, ever since Wiper asked what he wanted, Bellamy still couldn't see the future before him. All he knew was that he couldn't stay in the village and he couldn't go out to sea with his resolve still broken.

Without knowing what else to do, Bellamy kept doing what he had been: constructing houses, hunting, deactivating leftover traps. When he realized no one knew what to do with dirt beyond farming, he showed them how to make clay and fire it; like bedraggled North Blue parents did to keep stircrazy kids occupied during long winter months.

It felt good. Not so much helping people- Bellamy was not the man he once was but he hadn't changed _that_ drastically. It was the feeling of accomplishment. Having plans for each day met, watching the way things were shaped by his own hands. And maybe there was slight bonus in helping people so long as it meant they looked up to him with awe and respect.

"You've changed," one of his former crew said one day, wary, as if the Hyena of old would resurface at any moment.

"It's a different world," Bellamy said.

"It's not that different," and that was the end of that conversation. It left him wondering, though, looking out from the highest tier of the village, thinking about how the people here were determined to claw a space for themselves in the island until they had enough room to lay back, to relax, to take entire days to experience a life not spent struggling for survival. Bellamy respected their tenacity. He'd never known people with nearly as much resolve as the Shandians or Skypieans.

Or maybe, he thought suddenly, he just never acknowledged them.

~*~*~*~

If there was one thing Gan Fall taught him it was that most people wanted to live their lives without being bothered. Which, Wiper came to realize, basically meant a leader in times of peace had to wait until someone had something to complain about before there was any action to take.

The problem for him was being someone people not only felt could help them when their problems were too big, but also someone they believed cared. Wiper had never been good at being approachable.

"Maybe you should try smiling more," Conis suggested, giving one of her own that made people want to do anything she asked.

" _No_!" Said everyone else which made Wiper scowl at them.

"Wiper smiling makes him even scarier than usual," Genbou added. The upside to being one of the few to have actually befriended Wiper as they were growing up meant even his worst snarls rolled right off their backs. The downside was that Wiper couldn't growl them into submission in moments like this.

"Why do you want people to come to you anyway?" Laki asked. "We always told you anything important in case you didn't hear; you never had a problem with that system before."

"It," he chewed the end of his cigarette, the discomfort sudden and setting itself to words before he realized it, "makes me feel like Eneru. Listening in when people don't realize and coming down just to punish someone. I want to be part of this community."

The others quietly rolled Wiper's words around in their heads. He could see the way they went from teasing to seriously considering his request in the line of their shoulders, the arc of their jaws. With a gloved hand running idly against his chin, Braham said, "You can't force people to trust you, they have to come to it themselves. Making yourself accessible to them will help. Doing what you've been doing- working around the village, training Skypieans on how to hunt, even just showing up to dinner banquets goes a long way. The more people get used to your presence, the more they see you're capable and willing to help those that need it, the more they'll trust you."

"The more you're around people," Kamakiri added, "the more you'll understand them, too. You'll be able to tell if someone is having problems or ways to make their lives better. The more you get to know people, the easier it'll be to notice when something about them has changed."

"Like you and Laki?" Wiper asked dryly, prompting the two in question to splutter and turn bright red. Everyone else snickered and even Wiper couldn't stop the almost-curling of his lips. "It's about time, though. Finally ran out of excuses?" Laki dropped her head into her palm while Kamakiri crossed his arms and glared. That just prompted even more snickering.

"Having such good friends will make people trust you," Conis had her arms wrapped around her upright knees, cheek resting in her wrists and looking at the group of warriors with the kind of fondness that was almost embarrassing. "When they can see you laughing or joking or just relaxing, it shows them you're just like them. It's easy to bond with someone when you realize you're the same."

~*~*~*~

Bellamy didn't know what caused it, Wiper marching up to him with a fire in his eyes that was almost a prelude to battle. "Why did you become a pirate?" He all but demanded. "What were your reasons for working with that man? Why did you decide to go out to sea?" And Bellamy couldn't answer because...

He didn't know.

His reflex was to say for fame, for money, to have people trembling at his very name while he crushed their foolish dreams into reality but that wasn't the truth. Once, yes, but not in the beginning. Not when he was still a little boy ducking around trees and clamoring over rocks, building forts in the snow and sleeping in summer meadows.

His home island was large enough for several ports, was a prime economic hub. He could have made more than enough beri and reputation picking off merchants and travelers from there. But it hadn't been enough. He'd just realized, one day, that if he didn't get off the island, he'd be stuck there forever. Robbing the same caravans, plundering the same ships, rumbling in the same bars until, eventually, he was fighting the same people. There would be no challenge, no excitement. He would never get any better.

The revelation of that made him jolt upright in his bed one night. He became a pirate because if he didn't, he'd be a rodent running mazes only to end up in the same damned cage at the end of every day. He would wither and die in mediocrity, in stagnation. He would live in the same island in the same house being the same man for ten, thirty, fifty years.

It was the most frightening thing Bellamy had ever imagined and he had practically torn down Wiper's door at the memory just like he'd almost torn down Sarquis's at the realization. " _Fight me_ ," he blurted while the Shandian just stared at him, a half dismantled Dial skate in his hand.

"Why?"

"I need to get better."

"Better than who?"

"Myself. There's a man I want to have acknowledge me."

Wiper laid down his tools, chin lifted and eyes narrow. "What will you do when he does?"

He could feel a wildness in him, had trouble keeping his body from trembling, but beneath that it felt like a fire was going to eat him alive from purpose. "I'll surpass him."

"And after that?"

A grin stretched across Bellamy's face: violent, cruel, familiar but grounded like it had never been before. "Then I'll find someone else to surpass."

~*~*~*~

The first fight had been more a battle of frustration when neither of their bodies moved the way they remembered. It was almost shocking how much a month or two of no training could undo a lifetime of warfare. But they kept fighting each other until their bodies were too sore to move or the doctors scowled and threatened to tie them down. After a while it went from bullying themselves into doing the things they knew they were capable of to pushing themselves beyond their limits.

It was amazing.

Fighting against someone made Wiper's blood sing in ways hunting could never touch, in ways battles to the death was nothing like. It wasn't a bloodlust, it wasn't about violence, it was a test to see how far you could go and how much further you could go beyond that. It was pure life thrumming in his veins, sharpening his sense, narrowing his focus, making everything around him so much more real.

The first fight when Wiper used his Dials skates, when they'd been fixed and the sea stone blade replaced, he'd slammed Bellamy so hard into the ground he was practically embedded and a sudden fear clutched Wiper's chest- it wasn't a real fight, he'd gone too far, the sea stone negated Bellamy's power, he could actually be _hurt_ -

Bellamy started laughing. For the first time since he arrived on Skypiea he laughed loud and wild and Wiper understood how he got the moniker 'the Hyena'. Wiper came over with his hand outstretched and jaw set grimly, gathering up the words to apologize for such a reckless attack. But Bellamy beat him to it:

"I knew I picked the right sparring partner," his eyes were large but set, grinning with blood on his teeth. "Definitely worthy of being the first person I surpass."

Wiper's grim set became a toothy smirk as he heaved Bellamy off the ground. "I won't be that easy to surpass."

"No. But that's what makes you worthy."

Their sparring gained the attention of others: many former Shandian warriors began to join in, then several White Berets, even some regular civilians began to follow, wanting to gain the ability to protect their new home in case someone like Eneru came back. It went from simply sparring to training to fight and Wiper was surprised at how easy it was for him to slip back into that roll. It was the same- leading people in training, barking orders and corrections -but in many ways different. The hard desperation of previous times were gone, without the drive to train until his hands bled and bones creaked, without pushing those under him to the brink of exhaustion, it had become something almost fun and watching as others improved was no longer a mere satisfaction, but something that filled him with pride.

Bellamy, surprisingly, was a good trainer- enthusiastic, charismatic, pushing but encouraging and his boisterous laughter boomed across the training grounds daily. It was little wonder he had once been a fearsome pirate captain if he had once made his crew feel as invincible as he did those he trained. And he grew stronger and faster and Wiper sometimes felt hard-pressed to keep up with his pace but he did enough to keep their matches fairly even. There was no disappointment or resentment that they couldn't best each other, just the joy of a challenge to be overcome and knowing they were attaining greater heights than they ever had before.

For the first time in his life, Wiper was happy. Not just the contentment he'd felt since Eneru's defeat, but an actual joy where each morning was a promise of new possibilities and each night ended with the knowledge that something new was achieved. It was something Wiper owed, he knew, in no small part to Bellamy's presence and that was why, without hesitation despite the weight that formed in his chest, before anyone else, he told Bellamy, "A ship is coming."

~*~*~*~

Ships from the Blue Sea coming to the White-White Sea, merchant ships especially, were not unheard of but were rare and there was no way to know when the next chance to leave was if Bellamy didn't take this one. Bartering passage for him was easy, especially when Aisa explained there was some treasure deep in the Master of the Sky's belly- how she found this out exactly, Bellamy had absolutely no idea.

The merchants stayed for a week trading with the Skypieans and as the departure day grew closer, the excitement Bellamy felt at leaving was slowly turning to something almost like homesickness for a place he'd yet to leave. The Blue Sea wouldn't have a forest so breathtakingly huge, its beds and chairs wouldn't be as soft or cradling, its people would never treat him so warmly, so welcomingly, like an equal and a friend and as much as Bellamy longed for the sea, a part of him had been enraptured by the sky.

It was hard to say goodbye and his last dinner there stretched on for hours until he spread out on his back and fell asleep under stars he'd never be this close to again.

People came to see him off. More than he ever expected, smiling and waving, shouting well wishes as Bellamy gathered his few meager possessions and stood by the gangplank, waiting for the merchants to finish loading their cargo. He could smell Wiper's cigarette smoke before he heard the Shandian move to stand beside him. And then, from the tree line, came the heavy trudging of scores of feet and a giant, cloth covered pillar hoisted on bowed shoulders.

Bellamy knew what it was, he knew the story behind the giant golden pillar, how it was broken off from the belfry and that the Straw Hats had turned down the gift. He watched as it was loaded aboard the ship and something churned uncomfortably in his stomach. "Why are you giving me this?"

"If that Doflamingo is like any other Blue Sea dweller," Wiper said, end of his cigarette bobbing idly, "that much gold will definitely get his attention."

Bellamy turned, his eyes hard as he repeated, " _Why_ are you giving it to me?"

"We don't treasure gold like you do. We have no means to reattach it to the belfry, so it's useless to us."

The silence stretched, Bellamy's eyes remained hard and eventually Wiper sighed, letting his arms uncross as he turned to face the pirate. "I know nothing about this man you want approval from, why you're so determined for it, or if he's even someone worth everything you're willing to do for him. But you've helped us. You've shared in our hardships, protected our people and taught us new skills. Even if no one else on the Blue Sea thinks so, know that those in the sky have found you worthy. There will always be a place for you with us."

The churning became a knot; a sorrow for leaving this floating island but with a sudden determined swell of _I will return_. Bellamy held out his hand, grin so wide it was almost painful. "I'll be back one day."

Wiper's own smile was thin and barely visible but his grip was hard and real and warm. "We will be here."

~*~*~*~

The Fire of Shandora tolled loud and long, enough to echo across the blue waves further down. It rang its farewell to departing friends and its promise to guide them back to the place they would always be welcome and Wiper stood on the coast, after the ship has long since vanished from sight, after the bell ringers eventually left until the sun was beginning to set warm against his back.

He returned to Shandora as people were setting up tables for the nightly banquet at the foot of Calgara's statue made of cloud on one side of the main square and where another statue was being constructed from clay: Norland. The parallels struck him, so sudden but so obvious and Wiper couldn't help but laugh, unfurling from deep in his chest and making him feel so light it almost felt like his wings could lift him from the ground.

He smiled, staring up into the sky as the stars came out one by one. They would be here, he swore. No matter what happened, they would always be here.


End file.
